Re: Evolutionary compassion
- From: "John W Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 16:15:39 -0400 (EDT)
Brian VanPelt <brvanpelt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:-
JE:-
snip for bevity<
The mess that gene centric Neo Darwinism has gotten itself into over the
last half century or so, only because it insists to this day that no frame
of reference is required to be able to separate these key issues of
evolutionary biology within any osimplified/oversimplified model, is the
same mess that economics and politics based on the same hopeless
proposition (a refutable frame of reference is never required to be able
to
separate relative opposing issues) has gotten us into historically, e.g.
the
book keeping excesses of Enron accounting which failed to separate the
relative issue of debits from credits. Reasoning without an assumed,
refutable frame of reference can only represent 100% prejudiced PRE
GALILEAN
reasoning.
First off, let me say that I am thrilled that the biologists would let
a mathematician even have an opinion that would not be condemned as
stupid and senseless as is common in the math newsgroups (it appears
that we math folk are an egomaniacal breed).
JE:-
Synthetic genetics, i.e. population genetics (which is not the same as
analytical genetics based on Mendelism) entirely dominates evolutionary
theory today, as however, an uncorrected simplified/oversimplified
mathematical model of Darwinian theory. It is based on what is known as the
Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium which is a binomial expansion. What is being
expanded are the allele (gene) frequencies within one population. Most
organisms are diploid which means they have two copies of a genome where one
copy is inherited from each of two parents via sex after the haploid (single
genome copy) gametes unite at fertilisation. Here allele "A" from one sex
cell may be paired to allele "a" from the other parental sex cell within the
new organism such that the frequency of allele "A" can be defined as "p"
and allele "a" as "q" within one empirical population of fertile organism
parents. The important point is that this population of fertile organisms
has become _heuristically oversimplified_ to mean a population of
independently assorted alleles known as "the gene pool". These genes are
supposed to float about and be selected like letters in an alphabet soup.
While alleles can distribute themselves in an entirely independent way (as
measured by the binomial distribution) not one of them has an empirical
independent fitness no matter how you define fitness. In reality each and
every allele remains fitness dependent on at least one other allele at a
different locus within the same genome. In other words an empirical
alphabet soup is minimally two letters joined. In empirical reality the
number of alleles that are fitness dependent is represented by the total
number of alleles in one genome. For us this would be about 20,000 or so
alphabet soup letters joined together to make one enormous biscuit.This
deleted phenomena is known as "genetic epistasis". It can be mathematically
represented as any NON ADDITIVE gene association since additive associations
have no effect on the things being added. The model of the HW model
discussed so far allows (p+q)^2 = 1 where "1" represents a heuristic
population of just alleles, i.e. not anymore, an empirical population of
fertile organisms from which the gene pool concepts is derived as an
oversimplification. This expands to: p^2 +2pq +q^2 = 1. The frequency of an
allele pair within each organism is: AA = p^2, Aa=2pq and a=q^2. This
describes the HW distribution of allele pairs where each pair can only exist
within a single organism and one allele copy can only exist within each sex
cell which in turn can only be derived from one fertile organism.
It should be self evident that viable sex cells are only derivable from
_fertile_ organisms restricting empirical heritability to cycles of mature
fertile forms, excluding their sterile immature offspring and their alleles.
This means that the reproduction of a single allele remains incomplete until
that allele exists within the body of a fertile adult. A viable sex cell can
only be derived from a fertile parent. Therefore, the only possible unit of
selection that can be used as a frame of reference for evolutionary theory
(including population genetics models) is each fitness independent fertile
parent .This excludes any non adult organism and of course any one gene
deployed as a FITNESS INDEPENDENT SELECTEE. However, within all of these
models one gene remains assumed as an independent selectee when such a
concept can only represent an uncorrected heuristic. Sadly, this is where
things stand today.
The simplifications/oversimplifications that the HW population genetics
model assumes are:
1) The population (of fertile organisms) remains infinitely large and mates
entirely at random.
2) No natural selection or sexual selection.
3) The population of fertile organisms remains closed (no migration from the
outside).
4) No mutation per gene per fertile organism.
5) No meiotic distortion, i.e. the meiotic reduction of 2n (diploid) to n
(haploid) within each sex within each parent organism is completed entirely
at random.
No empirical population is consistent with heuristic simplification 1).
Therefore, random sampling error (known as genetic drift) can distort each
and every gene frequency away from the HW distribution in just a random way.
Sexual selection may be zero for some primitive species but natural
selection is hardly ever zero within any natural population. However natural
selection can be held at zero within a controlled experimental population.
While almost any population can remain closed for a period of time,
eventually almost all populations have to open up to migration or become
extinct. Random mutation, like random sampling error, always occurs only
because random processes cannot be eliminated empirically. Meiotic drive
producing meiotic distortion away from the HW distribution empirically
exists but only for a few deleterious alleles.
EVOLUTION within Neo Darwinism has allowed to become defined as ANY gene
frequency which differs from the HW distribution. While this definition of
evolution makes good mathematical sense, it makes no biological sense. This
is because the ground breaking falsifiable theory of evolution via natural
selection offered by Darwin and Wallace absolutely requires random heritable
variation to remain separate from non random selection within the one, same,
empirically falsifiable evolutionary theory. Within both Darwin and
Wallace's theory random selection acts on ubiquitous, heritable random
variation in one population providing an entirely NON RANDOM and therefore
testable gene freq change that alone can be validly termed "evolution". The
tidy mathematics of the population geneticist only provides a incredibly
messy (ambiguous) evolutionary theory, i.e. a proposed theory in which 100%
random evolution IS NOT differentiated from 100% non random evolution
allowing drift (temporal variation) and mutation (spatial variation) to
provide _non refutable random examples of "evolution"_ . Today, because
random changes in allele freq constitute evolution and not just variation,
just about anything can and subsequently did, e.g. Intelligent Design (ID)
become known as "evolution" reducing evolutionary theory to be on par with
irrefutable creationism. It has even been proposed that meiotic drive, which
can alter gene frequencies away from their binomial distribution are able to
contest and win against Darwinian natural selection at the fertile organism
level of selection even when all of these genes can produce a less fit
organism phenotype. Empirically, the more these genes win relatively the
more they lose absolutely where this absolute loss is only apparent if a
fitness frame of reference is defined.
If you argue that compassion is altruism then as a mathematician you may
appreciate Hamilton's Rule. It was and remains argued that organism fitness
altruism can empirically evolve whenever the following inequality is
satisfied: rb>c. Here r = relatedness, b the number of organism recipients
and c the Darwinian fitness of a supposed organism altruist expressed as a
cost. Note that the rule has no frame of reference (no constant term). This
being the case, all such a rule can validly describe is a defined tipping
point where however, nobody knows which way it is tipping i.e. without a
constant fitness acting as the critical frame of reference rb>c cannot be
EMPIRICALLY differentiated from rb<c. Of course mathematicians do not have
to care about such a mere empirical detail (and neither did the Enron
accountants). This type of model misuse (stripping falsifiable theories down
to just non falsifiable models and removing a critical frame of reference
required for that theory e.g. the critical fertile organism Darwinian frame
of reference) remains typical of the take over of the science of
evolutionary theory by mathematicians in the last 50 years of so.
Mathematics is NOT an empirically based science simply because mathematics
cannot provide an empirical constant frame of reference for ANYTHING,
including ITSELF.
Maybe it's because we
were routinely beat up by the cool kids that we have developed a
defense mechanism that is critical of any way of thought but our own.
JE:-
In my experience mathematicians cannot/refuse to differentiate empirical
from heuristic. The only person of note to hold peoples attention on this
most basic of issues appears to be the gifted mathematician Kurt Gödel.
Anyways, the dog taking care of the cats and other ideas have really
got me thinking hard about what we are, our choices and behaviours and,
most importantly, why we make those choices. Do we always make
choices that are in our best interest, in whatever sense that may be?
JE:-
Obviously not, but only because we are not perfect. The concept of
perfection remains an anathema to evolutionary biology even thought
mathematicians strive for it. We have never been selected to make choices
that are not in our own fitness self interest. Most of the choices we make
are for MUTUAL fitness increases where mutual DOES NOT MEAN EQUAL. However,
unequal mutualised fitness gain has become routinely misunderstood as
"selfishness" Vs "altruism" only because the required frame of reference
that can prove fitness remains Darwinian mutualistic within any Neo
Darwinian model, TDF (Total Darwinian Fitness) remains missing. I have been
pointing this out for over 10 years.
Are there generations of stupid choices, but in the long run, the good
choices outweigh the bad ones?
JE:-
The good choices are selected FOR while the poorer choices are selected
against at however, the one, same, level of selection: the Darwinian mono
centric fertile organism level of selection. Bad choices for this level can
only be heuristically represented as a "good" choice for just an imagined,
mathematically based, independent in fitness organism group level above the
empirical fertile organism level (or similarly imagined as an independent
in fitness gene centric level below it) remain just that: HEURISTIC. While
mathematicians do not appear to care-a-less about the critical difference
which separates heuristic events from empirical events scientists have _no
other choice_ but to discriminate between them on a falsifiable basis. Over
the history of the sciences if ever a scientist refused to make such a
critical separation e.g. propose a perpetual motion machine as real, they
were well advised to get psychiatric help.
It's hard to say what I mean here, but
is evolution about that? I have seen people mention that evolution
comes about by direct choices that immediately impact a particular
generation. I am not sure that I have seen an argument suggest that a
choice might impact a future generation but not a generation in the
immediate future. But I am ignorant to biology and the technical
language may well be confusing me.
JE:-
My understanding is that Neo Darwinists draw no line in the sand with regard
to how far ahead selection can/cannot operate. This is because Neo Darwinian
theory remains polycentric (assumes many units of selection as empirically
valid). Multiple and just reversible levels of selection are just
heuristically supposed by Neo Darwinists. These can allow larger and larger
biological groups/meta-groups to extend the time ahead over which selection
appears to operate because only a defined final grouping as a unit can
provide a limiting time frame. Note: no final unit is provided. OTOH,
empirically refutable mono centric Darwinism argues that just each TDF be
maximised as a contesting fitness MAXIMAND providing an empirical maximal
time frame over which selection can legally operate. For each parent on a
per population basis this is: the time taken to raise the last fertile
immature that a parent reproduces itself to fertile adulthood within one
population. This can allow a large payoff in later years where such a
strategy has routinely been mistaken for organism fitness altruism of the
young when deploying Hamilton's Rule. In most social mammalian species young
males risk life and limb to defend their group where such an action is
routinely assumed to be organism fitness altruistic when in fact it is
organism fitness mutualistic. Almost every male attempts invest in a pay now
but gain more than you pay later, strategy. Opportunities to breed in youth
can be selected to be _reduced_ if the same opportunities disproportionably
increase with increasing status for the same individual later on. The young
male fails to mate and raise offspring to fertile adulthood in his youth but
can be spectacularly successful at doing this at an older age as females and
other limited breeding resources become available to him because of his
increased status position within the group. Note that this is a very risky
business. In human groups this battle of the males for increase status and
power provides a politic worthy of a Monty Python movie mostly because it
requires selected polygamy for males within a Christian monogamous society.
Now, there have been cases where one species has cared for other
species for a variety of reasons (as several have pointed out), and it
seems that happenstance has always been the reason they have united.
Also, any nature show on TV has shown that, most often, when
conflicting species collide, one or both species doesn't fair well.
Why would a dog care for a cat when the chance occurs? Why would a
cat care for a dog?
JE:-
Dogs may care for cats only because dogs remain a critically social species
(like ourselves). OTOH a cat would not care for a dog because cats are just
solitary in nature. The ability of cats to mimic social signals in a dog
like way so that they get fed by us is a testament to the flexibility of
nature.
Would an ant care for an elephant? Or is that just too silly to
comprehend?
JE:-
Ants are robotic automatons. Not only that, they are EUSOCIAL robotic
automatons. This means that each infertile ant is just one mobile body part
of a selectable whole, i.e.each ant is not even a selectable whole robot.
You may as well ask if the cheek cell that you just spat out when you
coughed so that it is about to die for your bodies sake outside of your
body, "cares".
What, exactly, is possible or impossible from an evolutionary
standpoint? Or is this question even possible to try to answer? How
stupid of a question is it?
JE:-
Anything is possible as long as it results in an increase in a TDF maximand.
Mostly this represents a mutual but not necessarily equal TDF increase.
Unequal TDF increases have become routinely mistaken to be fitness
altruistic/selfish acts only because mathematical models have no TDF frame
of reference to be able to know any better.
The irony is that in math, we often talk about infinity, but our math
is quite limited to a few things.
JE:-
Pure mathematics is not empirically based, i.e. it remains 100% heuristic.
This means it applies to no thing.
Nature is more infinite than we
might think
JE:-
More than "infinite"? Only a mathematician would write that within a science
list...
and I believe we are kidding ourselves into thinking we
might have a handle on any reasonable view of how things really are.
JE:-
Yes but your proposition that "we are kidding ourselves into thinking we
might have a handle on any reasonable view of how things really are" was
itself, proposed as "reasonable view of how things really are" and not just
an unreasonable view. So what do you think you were saying? The trap you
have been caught in is very ancient: Epimenides Paradox. This is produced by
any _absolute self contradiction_. Mathematics is full of paradoxes. All of
them exist only within our imagination (which seems to be the only place of
interest for most mathematicians).
So, I can't seem to figure out why we math people are so egotistical
when we only have a handle on such a small portion of the world.
JE: -
Perhaps this is because they think that basing mathematics on just a
tautology so that it cannot be empirically falsified was a very clever thing
to do. Gödel proved otherwise.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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